COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES
I have been part of a collaborative teaching team over the past 10 years as an RECE in an Early Learning Kindergarten Program, in Wellington County. I have had the opportunity to be part of a Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) with the Kindergarten teams at my site in 2015. We worked on a project that involved investigating if allowing children to document their own learning would increase the student engagement in the classroom. The group sat down to discuss possible inquiry methods and models and an evaluation and assessment criteria to determine the project's effectiviness. I have more recently been involved in the delivery of the IB World School, International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program development, through the early stages, with a school in Wellington County. This work has included collaboration of a six member kindergarten team over the development, implementation and designed plan of an early learning program that incorporates both the Ontario Kindergarten Program and the IB PYP curricula design, into engaging philosopy based programming. Over the summer months of 2019, I have completed a field placement component of the Early Learning Resource Consulting program through a Conestoga/Seneca College partnership program. I have had the priveledged experience to work with KW Habilitation Services in Kitchener-Waterloo Region. During this placement, I contributed to an Early Learning Service Plan, worked along side parents and professionals to collaboratively contribute to the inclusion of children with diverse abilities. I sat on transdiciplinary team meetings and contributed to the support plans for children. I used an Inclusion Index to observe an early learning environment to provide feedback and enhancements to support the team and inclusive practices of the centre in which it was applied. I have included some examples of my work in the RC role so far.
Collaborative Practice
When working on a team to support Early Learning Practice it was helpful to have my Placement Supervisor to lead me through the process and walk me through setting things up. I learned that when working in collaboration with others on a team it works best when you have a casual and authentic demeanour. During my meetings I learned that positive connections occur when everyone feels like a valid part of the team table. When presenting evidence it is best to approach all pieces from a strength based lens.Ensuring all of the voices on the team are heard and honoured in the process, after all, we all have the same intention. With the addition of the virtual platform meeting spaces this collaboration can occur in a more relaxed and less hurried way. Professionals have access to all of their notes, documentation and observations at all times and they can be shared in real time during the meeting. I believe this makes for a smoother meeting and has everyone looking at the same pieces of evidence at the same time. The virtual meetings also provide all of the professionals access to their offices at the same time and can eliminate the missed or forgotten notes that may have impacted past collaborative meetings.
The unique part of the agency I worked with this term is that they have created a system where the different parts of the collaborative team are all housed within the same system making it easier to connect and locate the professionals on the team for the centre, child and family. This makes the collaborative process run much smoother and internal connection can come in an easier fashion than some other agencies where things can be difficult to navigate and connect with due to each professional on the team working from a separate agency, needing separate consents and forms that the family and centre must complete and submit before purposeful team collaboration can happen.
